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Further Reading List
The list below provides descriptions of books along with ways to obtain them: purchase / read in an electronic library / borrow a copy from the university library.
- Further Reading List
- Michio Shibuya and Takashi Tonagi: The CPU. Educational Manga
- Charles Petzold: Code. The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
- David M. Harris and Sarah L. Harris: Digital Design and Computer Architecture: RISC-V Edition
- David M. Harris and Sarah L. Harris: Digital Design and Computer Architecture. ARM Edition*
- Edited by A.Yu. Romanov and Yu.V. Panchul: Digital Synthesis: A Practical Course
- D. Patterson and J. Hennessy: Computer Organization and Design
- D. Patterson and J. Hennessy: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
- A. Tanenbaum and T. Austin: Structured Computer Organization
- Donald Thomas: Logic Design and Verification Using SystemVerilog
Michio Shibuya and Takashi Tonagi: The CPU. Educational Manga
The lightest possible way to absorb the core concepts of this course. It covers processor architecture in manga form. In the story, a girl named Kayragi Dyumi, a champion in the Japanese board game shogi, meets a stranger who challenges her to play against a computer. She loses, of course. One thing leads to another, and he begins explaining how the computer that beat her actually works. Impossible not to understand. After reading this manga, any book on the list below will be completely accessible to any reader.
Charles Petzold: Code. The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
A book for those who are struggling with the material. It explains what digital devices are, how they work, and why any of it matters — in an exceptionally approachable way. Using examples like flashlights, Morse code, Braille, and barcodes, the author introduces the fundamentals of information encoding. From lightbulbs and batteries, seemingly trivial devices are assembled that eventually evolve into a fully functional computer. Excellent popular science writing. If you know someone who has difficulty understanding digital technology, you are simply obligated to recommend this book to them.
David M. Harris and Sarah L. Harris: Digital Design and Computer Architecture: RISC-V Edition
An outstanding book that serves as a more accessible presentation and illustration of Patterson and Hennessy's Computer Organization and Design. Using the RISC-V architecture as an example, it explains how to build a processor starting from the fundamentals of transistor operation. Basic constructs of the hardware description languages SystemVerilog and VHDL are also covered.
David M. Harris and Sarah L. Harris: Digital Design and Computer Architecture. ARM Edition*
As the title suggests, this book complements the previous one by describing the differences between the ARM architecture and MIPS and RISC-V. The book consists of chapters dedicated to the ARM processor architecture, its microarchitecture, memory subsystem description, and the I/O system. The ARM instruction set is also provided in an appendix. Why such close attention to this architecture? Because it is one of the most widely used architectures in the world — for example, 98% of all mobile phones run on processors with an ARM architecture.
D. Patterson and J. Hennessy: Computer Organization and Design
The fathers of RISC architecture share their accumulated expertise. They not only explain how processors work, but also how to build them, instill design principles, elegantly highlight common misconceptions, pose challenging exercises, and generally pack the book with valuable information. A timeless classic. Not for nothing does the cover read a classic of computer science. The book concludes with a treatment of multicore, multiprocessor parallel systems. If you want a copy for your shelf, you may need to wait for a new printing or check bookstore shelves.
D. Patterson and J. Hennessy: Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
A companion to the previous book, the essence of which is captured in its title. The efficiency of modern computing systems is examined in quantitative terms. What factors affect the performance of computing systems and what dependencies exist between them. Significant attention is given to building the memory hierarchy and analyzing results, and instruction-level parallelism is explored. In some sense this is the bible of computing system analysis. The authors received the Turing Award for it. Recommended reading after completing the Processor System Architectures course. A portion of the book is available in the cloud for preview, and a physical copy would make a fine addition to any computer science home library.
A. Tanenbaum and T. Austin: Structured Computer Organization
A book on computer architecture from a world-renowned specialist in information technology, now in its sixth edition, dedicated to the structural organization of the computer. The architectures used as examples include the Intel Core i7, Texas Instruments OMAP4430, and Atmel ATmega168. The book is aimed at a broad audience, so you can read it without fear of not understanding something — though not everyone agrees with this assessment, and some (including the author of these lines) do not enjoy it. You can sense that Tanenbaum more often interacts with digital hardware as a programmer rather than as a hardware designer. This may actually help students from the corresponding programs grasp the material. The book can be purchased here.
Donald Thomas: Logic Design and Verification Using SystemVerilog
For those who not only want to understand how computers work, but also want to design digital devices themselves, a more serious study of a modern hardware description language will be necessary. Many will immediately recommend SystemVerilog — the most widely used option in industry. It is a more modern version of Verilog that addresses some of its shortcomings.
